


Iron

by Ladybug_21



Series: Compartments [2]
Category: Broadchurch
Genre: 1980s, British Politics, Closeted Character, Gen, Homophobia, Thatcherism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-10
Updated: 2020-03-10
Packaged: 2021-03-01 00:07:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,725
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23085991
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ladybug_21/pseuds/Ladybug_21
Summary: By professional necessity, Jocelyn Knight has had to smooth out all of the wrinkles that might brand her as different.
Series: Compartments [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1660780
Comments: 9
Kudos: 119





	Iron

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by BEE's request for a story about Jocelyn Knight meeting Margaret Thatcher, and by the fact that I drew on certain elements of Thatcher's own background to inform my read of Jocelyn's development as a barrister in a [previous fic](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22489495). And the start of this story dovetails with the start of a [story](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21894667) that I wrote exploring the fraught relationship between Jocelyn and Sharon Bishop, which began in 1988, so I thought I might as well make the exact date 24 May 1988...
> 
> I'm certainly not an expert on modern British political history, so please forgive any gross inaccuracies due to shoddy research. And I obviously own no rights to any of the characters from _Broadchurch_.

Jocelyn was still thinking about her interview with Sharon Bishop as she paid the taxi driver and stepped out onto the pavement, the stately stone façades of Whitehall looming above her. It was a brisk May evening and the sun was still high above the horizon; most of the government workers had already left for home, and the majority of people on the street were tourists with cameras, hoping to get a good shot of Parliament in the late golden light. Jocelyn flashed her ID at a uniformed guard in a doorway, walked through a metal detector, and ascended a sweeping marble staircase towards a room on the second floor, from which a susurrus of low voices echoed down the high-ceilinged hallways.

"Ah, Jocelyn!" Fred quickly excused himself from a conversation, and he snagged a flute of champagne for Jocelyn as he made his way towards her. "There you are, I was starting to worry you wouldn't be attending tonight. Haven't seen you in ages and was afraid I'd miss you altogether."

"Sorry, just had some things to finish up before heading over." Jocelyn accepted the champagne, somewhat surprised by the choice of proffered beverage, and raised it in a slight toast to Fred before she took a sip. "Anything interesting happening?"

"Oh, not at all. Just the same old faces, telling the same old stories. I don't suppose you'd be all that interested in the petty gossip circulating within the cloistered echelon of the Queen's Counsels, anyway."

"Just so long as none of it concerns me," Jocelyn quipped with a wry smile. "Here's a tidbit that you have my permission to add to your collection of gossip, though: I might be taking on a pupil."

"You what?" Fred grinned at Jocelyn. "That _is_ a juicy piece of gossip, coming from you—have you _ever_ taken on a pupil before? What'd he have to do to gain your approval?"

Jocelyn shrugged cryptically, but she thought, _She had the courage to tell me the truth, about what an absolute coward I've been for the past ten years, and that was all it took, on a day like today._

"Well, he's a lucky chap, no doubt," Fred concluded, sensing that Jocelyn wasn't planning to say anything more. "I'm glad you were able to pull yourself away from that excitement, though. Maggie's supposed to arrive any minute now, and I'm just dying to introduce the two of you, I think you'd really hit it off."

"Maggie?" Jocelyn's eyebrows raised in what she hoped wasn't an expression of alarm, the appearance of champagne at a rote reception suddenly becoming horrifyingly obvious. "You don't mean...?"

"Mmm, perhaps I've said too much." Fred winked at Jocelyn as he took a delicate sip of champagne. "Oh, but wait..."

"Speak of the Devil," Jocelyn muttered very quietly under her breath. Her heart plummeted as the energy of room swept towards the doorway, where a number of security had just entered, flanking a perfectly coiffed woman in pearls and a sapphire skirt suit, a large matching handbag dangling from one arm.

"Madam Prime Minister! Congratulations, Madam Prime Minister!"

Jocelyn had seen Margaret Thatcher in the flesh once before, from a distance, and then as now, she was struck by the way that the politician seemed to draw all eyes in her direction through sheer force of personality. Jocelyn admired very little about the Prime Minister in the abstract, but even she had to confess to being overwhelmed by the Iron Lady's unshakable self-confidence, by the slight smirk she seemed to deliver to the world on account of her having succeeded against all imaginable odds.

"Will you be saying anything about today's vote?" someone asked.

"I think the vote speaks well enough for itself," Thatcher demurred with a smile.

"A toast!" someone else proposed, and the champagne flutes around Jocelyn rose into the air. "To the Prime Minister! To Section 28!"

Jocelyn quietly took a sip of her own champagne as everyone else cheered and clinked flutes. Fred, thankfully, was too busy chatting with the person on his other side to note Jocelyn's lack of enthusiasm.

"About time, too, that we started upholding family values and protecting our children from being misled by their own schoolteachers into degenerate, disease-ridden lifestyles..." But when Fred saw Jocelyn put down her champagne flute on the cocktail table next to her, he put a hand on her arm. "Hang on just a moment, Jocelyn, before you disappear, I think I can get her attention if we work hard enough..."

Jocelyn, momentarily helpless, let Fred steer her through the throngs surrounding the Prime Minister.

"Excuse me, pardon me—Madam Prime Minister! Hey, Maggie!"

Thatcher turned.

"Fred! No surprise to see you here. How have you been?"

"Oh, fine, fine, as always. May I introduce Miss Jocelyn Knight?" Fred gently pushed Jocelyn forward. "One of the newer QCs appointed, and not a moment too soon."

"Is that so." Thatcher held out a hand, and Jocelyn, through sheer force of habit, accepted it. "Congratulations, Miss Knight. Glad to see that the old boys' club has accepted you as readily as it has."

"Oh, of course," said Jocelyn neutrally, noting that Thatcher's hand somehow seemed to run at the same temperature as everyone else's, despite the fact that Jocelyn had always assumed that ice water ran through the Prime Minister's veins. "Everyone's been incredibly gracious, and I feel so very lucky to have more experienced QCs like Fred looking out for me."

"How could I not?" Fred fixed Jocelyn with a fond, avuncular smile. "I really do see a lot of you in Jocelyn, Madam Prime Minister. Fellow Somervillian, damn hard worker, even came up from the same humble ranks as you... what's it your dad did again, Jocelyn, wasn't he a grocer, as well?"

"Shopkeeper," Jocelyn corrected him, trying not to sound annoyed. To her surprise, she saw a similar flicker of irritation cross Thatcher's face upon hearing Fred's words.

"Well, the very best of luck to you, Miss Knight," Thatcher said in her deliberately deep voice. "Always nice to see the next generation rising without the same sense of shame, by means of the ladders we left behind for them."

And Jocelyn stared at the Iron Lady, torn. Because of course there _would_ be no Jocelyn Knight QC, if not for the Margaret Thatchers of twenty years prior who had blazed the trail into the House of Commons and before the Crown Court, and Jocelyn knew that as well as the next person. But how could Thatcher even _begin_ to claim credit for helping Jocelyn and others like her? It wasn't nearly enough to be a fellow woman and a fellow barrister and even from the same working-class background as Thatcher, not when all of the Tories surrounding her were so busy toasting the self-satisfied Prime Minister for the passage of legislation that was all but a boot on the throats of people who were braver than Jocelyn. _What could you possibly know about who I am and how much you've really helped me, Maggie Thatcher?_ Jocelyn spat internally. But all she did was nod and back away as Fred shook Thatcher's hand and grinned his congratulations once more for the vote earlier that day.

"Don't say I never do anything for you," Fred winked as he led Jocelyn back across the room. "And to think that you got to meet the Prime Minister on a day like today, of all days!"

"Fred," said Jocelyn quietly, her eyes on the ground.

"What's the matter?" Fred stopped and turned towards Jocelyn in concern, a hand under her elbow. "Everything all right, Jocelyn? Are you feeling unwell? Shall we find you a chair, maybe some water?"

Thankfully, Jocelyn had trained herself long ago not to burst into tears, even though it was so _unfair_ that people like Fred who genuinely cared about her should so easily and so unwittingly praise a bill that cast her as a villain. For a brief, insane moment, she wondered what would happen if she told Fred right here and now that she was one of those degenerates whom he had denigrated so scornfully only moments before. Would he back away in horror, denounce her before all of the other QCs assembled, have Jocelyn thrown back out onto the pavement of Whitehall with Margaret Thatcher's sneer following her?

Jocelyn wasn't brave enough to find out, of course. So instead she smiled wanly at Fred and shook her head.

"Just have had a long day, and more than my quota of excitement," she explained. "Will you forgive me if I slip out now?"

"Of course," Fred said graciously. "So good to see you, Jocelyn, as always. Lunch sometime soon, maybe? You really can't hint at this future pupil of yours and then not give me any more details, you know."

Jocelyn granted Fred an appreciative chuckle before she said her goodbyes and departed. But as she made her way back down the marble staircase, away from the excited chatter and laughter of the glittering room of QCs, she thought once more about Sharon Bishop, about what a disappointment she, Jocelyn, managed to be in so much more than just her professional choices. _One day, when all of this is over, I'll be brave again_ , she swore, stopping before Parliament, admiring how its stone walls already were illuminated gold against the inky twilight sky, a stunning exterior to a building whose halls festered with so much hatred. One day, she would be able to scrape away the perfectly flat, expressionless veneer that she had built up around herself, a blank wall with no features and no blemishes that let the rest of the world see only the highly competent barrister. One day, she would finally be able to be herself, imperfections and wrinkles and differences all too apparent. And then she would do what she had once promised she would, what Sharon Bishop had urged her to do earlier that day, and fight the unpopular fights for the people who most needed help. Perhaps today, Jocelyn needed to maintain that painfully cultivated neutrality, simply to survive the reign of the Iron Lady. But surely Thatcherism and its ilk couldn't last forever. Even the hardest iron, buffeted by enough winds and rains, would eventually corrode away into a weaker, less-stable rust.


End file.
